In the end, President Donald Trump lost his patience. For weeks, his administration had pursued a dual-track strategy toward Iran, dispatching envoys Steve Wifkoff and Jared Kushner to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear program while staging the largest military build up in the Middle East since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. But once the USS Gerald R. Ford steamed into the Mediterranean eight days ago, current and former officials say, the balance shifted. By the end of the week, Trump made the final call to pursue military action after deciding that Iran’s Islamist regime would not commit to his satisfaction to forgo nuclear weapons, according to three senior Trump administration officials. On Saturday in Iran, U.S. forces launched coordinated strikes alongside Israel, ending a tense standoff that had built for months and bringing Washington into its most expansive military confrontation with Tehran to date. WAITING FOR THE ARMADA The USS Ford entered the Mediterranean around Feb. 20, a major factor in the ultimate timing of the strike, according to one former National Security Council official and one Israeli official. The carrier’s arrival gave Trump the full range of military options Trump wanted. The officials, like others in this report, were granted anonymity to share sensitive details of the operation. “The arrival of the Ford was significant,” said the former Trump NSC official who’s been involved with Iran policy. It was also the result of weeks of close U.S.-Israeli intelligence collection and coordination. “Whenever you eliminate people, and not just carry out an attack against targets, there’s an element of surprise and also when you have the intelligence on them,” the Israeli official said. Trump had made clear to advisers that while he wanted to give diplomacy one last chance, he would not allow talks to drag on indefinitely, according to a high-level administration official involved in Middle East diplomacy. Since January, when Iranian security forces killed what some reports have called tens of thousands of protesters in a brutal crackdown, Trump had grown increasingly convinced that Tehran needed new leadership, calling for an end to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s 37-year-reign in an interview with POLITICO.Still, he authorized a final diplomatic push. He sent longtime confidant Steve Witkoff, along with his son-in-law and peace envoy Jared Kushner to Geneva to explore the possibility of a nuclear deal with the Iranians. Kushner and Witkoff met Iranian officials in Geneva twice in February, with Oman serving as a mediator. The high-level administration official involved in Middle East diplomacy described the effort as genuine, if ultimately futile. “The read is simple: He very much optimized for a deal,” the official said. “There was no true counterparty in the end. This is the way we have executed this from the start. In [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, for example, there is a willing counterparty, albeit tough, but at the table.” “Here, when it’s literal religion, it becomes a fool’s errand at a point to keep trying to find a compromise,” the official added. THE AMERICAN RED LINE The Iranians made some concessions, such as offering to stop enrichment for a time, but they fell far short of what was needed to satisfy the hard American line: a commitment to not develop a nuclear weapon. One of the senior Trump administration officials said Iran insisted on keeping their enrichment capabilities even after Washington offered what they felt were creative workarounds, such as free nuclear fuel forever. “One of the rules of dealmaking is that you have to know very quickly if there’s a deal to do or not,” the official said. “If they wanted to have a civil peaceful nuclear program, we offered them many, many ways to do that. But instead that was met with games, tricks, stall tactics, and that was really the conclusion that we came back with.” In the talks Iran wanted to talk specifics about sanctions relief and nuclear compromises, but Washington sent only Kushner and Witkoff – not any experts, confusing the Iranian delegation about how to move forward, according to one person familiar with the diplomacy. The Americans did not see the need for any experts to discuss zero uranium enrichment, a second person said. The last-ditch effort at diplomacy was also a way to mollify Arab allies, who in recent weeks had urged caution about attacking Iran in conversations with the president’s top aides. But several Arab diplomats came away from their White House meetings with a sense that their concerns weren’t breaking through and that an attack at some point soon seemed likely, according to three people familiar with those conversations. “Trump has been pressing hard for weeks,” one of those people said. “Once the military was in place, the window of opportunity was there.” For weeks, two of the people familiar added, U.S. officials were quietly laying the groundwork inside Iran for strikes targeting the country’s military and religious leaders. That effort involved gleaning intelligence about the location of Iran’s leaders for a strike and figuring out who would be willing to work with the U.S. if the regime were to fall. On Tuesday, congressional leaders in the Gang of Eight were briefed on the possibility of U.S. military action in coordination with Israel. Two days later, Trump received a briefing from U.S. Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper on his options. In planning meetings in the lead-up to U.S. military strikes, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine expressed concern about the impacts of an extended U.S. military operation on the Pentagon’s stockpiles and air defenses, according to one of the people familiar with the conversations. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was not part of the day-to-day planning, also had reservations. But neither of them forcefully made the case against going to war, the person said. Beyond Trump and a small handful of hawks, the mood in the administration became one of resignation. In the administration, “these guys are just apoplectic about where things are heading,” the person said. “There were people uncomfortable with Midnight Hammer and Absolute Resolve,” the person said, referring to the June attack on the Iranian nuclear sites and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. “But those were well planned and had discrete objectives. This doesn’t have that.” On Friday, Vice President JD Vance met with Oman’s foreign minister Badr Albusaidi, who was mediating the U.S.-Iran talks, in a Hail-Mary diplomatic play. Though Albusaidi left the most recent round of talks in Geneva saying there had been “significant progress,” the American delegation was not satisfied after the most recent round. To Washington’s allies it was clear time was running out. At the center of the impasse was Trump’s insistence that Iran publicly and unequivocally commit to forgoing nuclear weapons. Iran’s repeated pledges over the years that it would not build such weapons apparently did not meet his bar. Iran denies it has ever sought to build a nuclear weapon, but the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency has reported years of nuclear weapons-related work. Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium, the fissile material it could potentially use for a bomb, is believed to have been buried under rubble after the U.S. and Israel attacked its three main nuclear sites in June. Tehran says it has a right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes such as medical research. “They have to say, ‘We’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon,’” Trump said Friday, hours before the strikes began. “They just can’t quite get there.” “WE’VE BEEN PLAYING WITH THEM FOR 47 YEARS” By Friday afternoon, Trump was in Corpus Christi, Texas, for a rally, stopping at a burger joint after addressing supporters. Trump’s tone, even then, was resolute. “We’ve been playing with them for 47 years, and that’s a long time,” Trump said. “They’ve been blowing the legs off our people, blowing their face off our people, the arms. They’ve been knocking out ships one by one. And every month, there’s something else, so … you can’t put up with it too long.”That evening, Trump flew to Mar-a-Lago, where he set up operations at his private club as top defense and intelligence officials joined him. Hours later, the strikes began, as Trump watched from Mar-a-Lago and Vance and other Cabinet secretaries monitored from the Situation Room at the White House.“Now you have a president who is giving you what you want,” Trump said in recorded remarks, appealing directly to Iranian citizens. “So let’s see how you respond.” Nahal Toosi and Paul McLeary contributed to this report.

LONDON —New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell famously said “we don’t do God.” Reform UK is taking a different approach. Nigel Farage’s populist right-wing force, which leads in the opinion polls, put religion at the heart of its political agenda on Monday, promising to “protect the Christian heritage of Britain.” In a speech on the south coast of England, Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, said: “A nation without a culture is not a nation at all. It’s just an economic zone, a shopping mall with a flag waiting to be exploited.” Yusuf earlier told the Times newspaper that Christianity is “core to the history and the DNA of the country,” and renewing the nation’s religious faith is essential for tackling the “crisis of meaning culturally.” He told the paper Britain is losing its Christian values because of the “sheer quantities of people that came to the country in a short period of time.” If it wins power, Reform UK would grant immediate and automatic listed status to churches, meaning their character could not be altered. The buildings would also be prevented from being converted into places of worship for other religions, like mosques, Yusuf said. NOT DOING GOD Religious faith is a topic U.K. politicians usually try to avoid. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is an atheist, while Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is agnostic — though she said she still feels like a “cultural Christian.” Tim Farron resigned as Lib Dem leader after the 2017 general election because he felt unable to square “being a good leader and a good Christian”. Speaking in Dover on Monday, Yusuf, a Muslim, said: “I can see that so much of what makes Britain such a great country is associated and irrevocably derived from Britain’s Christian heritage. I think that’s a very popular view. I hear that all the time from people.” Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think tank, challenged Reform’s claim that migrants are undermining Christianity. “There’s an irony that it is Britain’s new migrant populations that are slowing the decline of church-going in Britain,” he said in a statement to POLITICO. Less than half (46.2 percent) of the U.K. population described themselves as Christian in the 2021 England and Wales census, down from 59.3 percent in 2011. More than a third (37.2 percent) said they had no religion, up from 25.2 percent 10 years earlier. Humanists UK Chief Executive Andrew Copson criticized Reform for failing to recognize the growing number of non-Christians in Britain. “Most of us in Britain aren’t Christian in our beliefs, practices, or identity. Although Christianity has contributed to our heritage, pre-Christian, non-Christian, and post-Christian influences have been just as important,” he said in a statement. Reform UK also announced Monday it would proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist organizations. It will also overhaul the Prevent program, which aims to stop people from becoming terrorists. A new group linking the church and Reform UK called the Christian Fellowship for Reform was launched last year. Earlier this month, James Orr, a Christian and associate professor of philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge, was appointed Reform UK’s head of policy. Sam Blewett contributed reporting

Werder Bremen, a top German soccer team, is canceling its planned trip to Minnesota this summer, after violence and political chaos engulfed Minneapolis amid the Trump administration’s major immigration enforcement push in January. “Playing in a city where there’s unrest and people have been shot, that does not fit with our values here at Werder Bremen,” Christoph Pieper, the club’s head of communications, said in a statement. “Furthermore, it was unclear for us which players could be able to enter the United States due to the stricter entry requirements.” The administration sent roughly 3,000 federal immigration agents to Minneapolis beginning in December, in a deportation effort dubbed Operation Metro Surge. Agents killed two protesters, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in separate incidents last month as demonstrations spread throughout the city. And while White House border czar Tom Homan announced the White House was ending its surge in Minnesota last week, Werder Bremen’s cancellation is far from the only economic fallout of the surge. Minneapolis city leaders announced last Friday that the operation had resulted in a more than $200 million financial impact. Werder Bremen, one of the founding members of the Bundesliga and a winner of four German championships, has a reputation as one of the most progressive clubs in Europe. The club left X for Bluesky in 2024 due to “hate speech, hatred towards minorities, right-wing extremist posts and conspiracy theories” that had “been allowed to spread on X at an incredible pace,” it said in a statement at the time. “We as a club, we have clear values,“ Pieper said Friday. “Our club stands for an open, pluralistic and united society. We are committed to ensuring that all people — regardless of their origin, skin colour, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age or disability — are naturally included and have a firm place in our community.” The global soccer community has largely been kind to President Donald Trump since his return to the White House last year. The U.S. — alongside Canada and Mexico — is playing host to the quadrennial FIFA World Cup this summer. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has worked to court Trump’s favor, presenting him with a new FIFA Peace Prize in December and pledging millions for the White House’s Board of Peace initiative this week. Werder Bremen is in the midst of a difficult season in the Bundesliga, languishing in 16th place in the league table with just four wins in the first 22 games of this year’s campaign. But just last year, the team finished in the league’s top 10 — with a 51-point effort keyed by 10 goals from Danish striker Jens Stage.

Pope Leo will not participate in U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza due to concerns it seeks to undermine the United Nations.  The Holy See received an invitation to join the board in late January but declined “because of its particular nature, which is evidently not that of other States,” said Vatican top diplomat Pietro Parolin, outside a meeting with the Italian government Tuesday, according to the Vatican News site.   The Board of Peace, chaired by Trump, is designed to oversee Gaza’s demilitarization and reconstruction under a U.N.-endorsed ceasefire framework. “One concern is that at the international level it should above all be the U.N. that manages these crisis situations,” Parolin said. “This is one of the points on which we have insisted.”  Pope Leo has been a critic of the U.S. president on immigration policy, foreign affairs and climate change, since taking up the helm of the Catholic Church last May.   The details of the peace board’s operations and potential to become an alternative U.N. have caused European nations to decline participation. EU member countries Hungary and Bulgaria did signal that they would join the board during a ceremony in Davos, Switzerland last month. While the EU will not join Trump’s organization, it is sending Dubravka Šuica, the European commissioner for the Mediterranean, to Washington for the board’s first formal meeting this Thursday. The White House declined to comment.

Belgium’s Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot has summoned Bill White, the U.S. ambassador to the country, over his comments accusing Belgium of antisemitism and lashing out against its health minister. “Any suggestion that Belgium is antisemitic is false, offensive, and unacceptable. Belgium condemns antisemitism with the greatest firmness,” Prévot wrote Monday evening in a long post on X, calling White’s statements “unacceptable.” “Personal attacks against a Belgian minister and interference in judicial matters violate basic diplomatic norms … The Ambassador has been immediately summoned for a meeting this Tuesday,” Prévot continued. White on Monday criticized Belgium’s handling of a case in Antwerp where three mohels — Jewish men who perform ritual circumcision — were placed under judicial investigation for allegedly carrying out procedures without a doctor being present. He also appeared to pressure Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke to intervene in the case. “TO BELGIUM, SPECIFICALLY YOU MUST DROP THE RIDICULOUS AND ANTI SEMITIC “PROSECUTION” NOW OF THE 3 JEWISH RELIGIOUS FIGURES (MOHELS) IN ANTWERP!” White wrote in his post. White then turned on Vandenbroucke, calling him “very rude” and claiming that at their first encounter, Vandenbroucke had refused to shake his hand or pose for a photograph together in his conference room. “You must make a legal provision to allow Jewish religious MOHELS to perform their duties here in Belgium,” White said. “Take action NOW! The world is watching. America is counting on you to do the right thing. Frank, you should do it NOW so this case ends!” After Prévot expressed his disapproval on social media, White responded with another long post. “In NO way, shape or form have we ever suggested that a political person in the Gov’t should interfere in a judicial case. That said, the case should be immediately dropped,” White wrote, adding that “it is ABSOLUTELY an issue of antisemitism.” “You either have to make a change to the procedural accreditation or you have to call prosecution of these three beautiful religiously qualified and wonderful men anti-semeitc,” he continued, misspelling the last word. White then lashed out at Vandenbroucke again. “He was very rude and was quite obnoxious. I was told he does not like my great President,” he wrote. Belgian legislation mandates that all medical procedures be performed by licensed doctors, while mohels are usually not licensed. Some 60 Jewish leaders wrote a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last May, urging the EU to condemn Belgium after police raided the homes of several mohels in Antwerp.

The face of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was erased from a church fresco in Rome following a controversy over the artwork earlier this week. The affair began with painter Bruno Valentinetti’s restoration of a fresco at Rome’s Basilica of San Lorenzo in Lucina, which he first painted in the early 2000s. One of the figures in the restored fresco, it was noticed, bore an uncanny resemblance to Meloni. The likeness sparked outrage among opposition parties, prompting the Ministry of Culture and the Diocese of Rome to open an inquiry. According to a Wednesday report in La Repubblica, a daily paper, the painter said he had since painted over the face on Tuesday night. “That’s what the Vatican wanted,” Valentinetti told Italian media. “Yes, it is the prime minister’s face,” he confessed, “but based on the previous painting.” POLITICO reached out to the Vatican for comment but did not receive an answer ahead of publication. The culture ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that following the erasure of the face, Rome’s special superintendent had informed the rector of the basilica of the applicable rules. “Any restoration work requires an authorization request to the Religious Buildings Fund of the Interior Ministry, which owns the property, as well as to the Vicariate and the Special Superintendency of Rome, accompanied by a sketch of the image,” the statement said. While Meloni had previously laughed off the issue, noting “I definitely don’t look like an angel,” it remained unclear on Wednesday how Italy’s right-wing leader felt about being so unceremoniously erased. POLITICO contacted Meloni’s office as well as the rector of the basilica for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

LONDON — Reza Pahlavi was in the United States as a student in 1979 when his father, the last shah of Iran, was toppled in a revolution. He has not set foot inside Iran since, though his monarchist supporters have never stopped believing that one day their “crown prince” will return.  As anti-regime demonstrations fill the streets of more than 100 towns and cities across the country of 90 million people, despite an internet blackout and an increasingly brutal crackdown, that day may just be nearing.   Pahlavi’s name is on the lips of many protesters, who chant that they want the “shah” back. Even his critics — and there are plenty who oppose a return of the monarchy — now concede that Pahlavi may prove to be the only figure with the profile required to oversee a transition.  The global implications of the end of the Islamic Republic and its replacement with a pro-Western democratic government would be profound, touching everything from the Gaza crisis to the wars in Ukraine and Yemen, to the oil market.  Over the course of three interviews in the past 12 months in London, Paris and online, Pahlavi told POLITICO how Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be overthrown. He set out the steps needed to end half a century of religious dictatorship and outlined his own proposal to lead a transition to secular democracy. Nothing is guaranteed, and even Pahlavi’s team cannot be sure that this current wave of protests will take down the regime, never mind bring him to power. But if it does, the following is an account of Pahlavi’s roadmap for revolution and his blueprint for a democratic future.  POPULAR UPRISING  Pahlavi argues that change needs to be driven from inside Iran, and in his interview with POLITICO last February he made it clear he wanted foreign powers to focus on supporting Iranians to move against their rulers rather than intervening militarily from the outside.  “People are already on the streets with no help. The economic situation is to a point where our currency devaluation, salaries can’t be paid, people can’t even afford a kilo of potatoes, never mind meat,” he said. “We need more and more sustained protests.” Over the past two weeks, the spiraling cost of living and economic mismanagement have indeed helped fuel the protest wave. The biggest rallies in years have filled the streets, despite attempts by the authorities to intimidate opponents through violence and by cutting off communications. Pahlavi has sought to encourage foreign financial support for workers who will disrupt the state by going on strike. He also called for more Starlink internet terminals to be shipped into Iran, in defiance of a ban, to make it harder for the regime to stop dissidents from communicating and coordinating their opposition. Amid the latest internet shutdowns, Starlink has provided the opposition movements with a vital lifeline. As the protests gathered pace last week, Pahlavi stepped up his own stream of social media posts and videos, which gain many millions of views, encouraging people onto the streets. He started by calling for demonstrations to begin at 8 p.m. local time, then urged protesters to start earlier and occupy city centers for longer. His supporters say these appeals are helping steer the protest movement. Reza Pahlavi argues that change needs to be driven from inside Iran. | Salvatore Di Nolfi/EPA The security forces have brutally crushed many of these gatherings. The Norway-based Iranian Human Rights group puts the number of dead at 648, while estimating that more than 10,000 people have been arrested. It’s almost impossible to know how widely Pahlavi’s message is permeating nationwide, but footage inside Iran suggests the exiled prince’s words are gaining some traction with demonstrators, with increasing images of the pre-revolutionary Lion and Sun flag appearing at protests, and crowds chanting “javid shah” — the eternal shah. DEFECTORS Understandably, given his family history, Pahlavi has made a study of revolutions and draws on the collapse of the Soviet Union to understand how the Islamic Republic can be overthrown. In Romania and Czechoslovakia, he said, what was required to end Communism was ultimately “maximum defections” among people inside the ruling elites, military and security services who did not want to “go down with the sinking ship.”  “I don’t think there will ever be a successful civil disobedience movement without the tacit collaboration or non-intervention of the military,” he said during an interview last February.  There are multiple layers to Iran’s machinery of repression, including the hated Basij militia, but the most powerful and feared part of its security apparatus is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Pahlavi argued that top IRGC commanders who are “lining their pockets” — and would remain loyal to Khamenei — did not represent the bulk of the organization’s operatives, many of whom “can’t pay rent and have to take a second job at the end of their shift.”  “They’re ultimately at some point contemplating their children are in the streets protesting … and resisting the regime. And it’s their children they’re called on to shoot. How long is that tenable?” Pahlavi’s offer to those defecting is that they will be granted an amnesty once the regime has fallen. He argues that most of the people currently working in the government and military will need to remain in their roles to provide stability once Khamenei has been thrown out, in order to avoid hollowing out the administration and creating a vacuum — as happened after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.  Only the hardline officials at the top of the regime in Tehran should expect to face punishment.  In June, Pahlavi announced he and his team were setting up a secure portal for defectors to register their support for overthrowing the regime, offering an amnesty to those who sign up and help support a popular uprising. By July, he told POLITICO, 50,000 apparent regime defectors had used the system.  His team are now wary of making claims regarding the total number of defectors, beyond saying “tens of thousands” have registered. These have to be verified, and any regime trolls or spies rooted out. But Pahlavi’s allies say a large number of new defectors made contact via the portal as the protests gathered pace in recent days.  REGIME CHANGE In his conversations with POLITICO last year, Pahlavi insisted he didn’t want the United States or Israel to get involved directly and drive out the supreme leader and his lieutenants. He always said the regime would be destroyed by a combination of fracturing from within and pressure from popular unrest.  He’s also been critical of the reluctance of European governments to challenge the regime and of their preference to continue diplomatic efforts, which he has described as appeasement. European powers, especially France, Germany and the U.K., have historically had a significant role in managing the West’s relations with Iran, notably in designing the 2015 nuclear deal that sought to limit Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.  But Pahlavi’s allies want more support and vocal condemnation from Europe. U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in his first term and wasted little time on diplomacy in his second. He ordered American military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, as part of Israel’s 12-day war, action that many analysts and Pahlavi’s team agree leaves the clerical elite and its vast security apparatus weaker than ever.  U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal in his first term and wasted little time on diplomacy in his second. | Pool photo by Bonnie Cash via EPA Pahlavi remains in close contact with members of the Trump administration, as well as other governments including in Germany, France and the U.K. He has met U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio several times and said he regards him as “the most astute and understanding” holder of that office when it comes to Iran since the 1979 revolution.  In recent days Trump has escalated his threats to intervene, including potentially through more military action if Iran’s rulers continue their crackdown and kill large numbers of protesters.  On the weekend Pahlavi urged Trump to follow through. “Mr President,” he posted on X Sunday. “Your words of solidarity have given Iranians the strength to fight for freedom,” he said. “Help them liberate themselves and Make Iran Great Again!” THE CARETAKER KING  In June Pahlavi announced he was ready to replace Khamenei’s administration to lead the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.   “Once the regime collapses, we have to have a transitional government as quickly as possible,” he told POLITICO last year. He proposed that a constitutional conference should be held among Iranian representatives to devise a new settlement, to be ratified by the people in a referendum.  The day after that referendum is held, he told POLITICO in February, “that’s the end of my mission in life.”  Asked if he wanted to see a monarchy restored, he said in June: “Democratic options should be on the table. I’m not going to be the one to decide that. My role however is to make sure that no voice is left behind. That all opinions should have the chance to argue their case — it doesn’t matter if they are republicans or monarchists, it doesn’t matter if they’re on the left of center or the right.”  One option he hasn’t apparently excluded might be to restore a permanent monarchy, with a democratically elected government serving in his name.  Pahlavi says he has three clear principles for establishing a new democracy: protecting Iran’s territorial integrity; a secular democratic system that separates religion from the government; and “every principle of human rights incorporated into our laws.” He confirmed to POLITICO that this would include equality and protection against discrimination for all citizens, regardless of their sexual or religious orientation.  COME-BACK CAPITALISM  Over the past year, Pahlavi has been touring Western capitals meeting politicians as well as senior business figures and investors from the world of banking and finance. Iran is a major OPEC oil producer and has the second biggest reserves of natural gas in the world, “which could supply Europe for a long time to come,” he said.  “Iran is the most untapped reserve for foreign investment,” Pahlavi said in February. “If Silicon Valley was to commit for a $100 billion investment, you could imagine what sort of impact that could have. The sky is the limit.”  What he wants to bring about, he says, is a “democratic culture” — even more than any specific laws that stipulate forms of democratic government. He pointed to Iran’s past under the Pahlavi monarchy, saying his grandfather remains a respected figure as a modernizer.  “If it becomes an issue of the family, my grandfather today is the most revered political figure in the architect of modern Iran,” he said in February. “Every chant of the streets of ‘god bless his soul.’ These are the actual slogans people chant on the street as they enter or exit a soccer stadium. Why? Because the intent was patriotic, helping Iran come out of the dark ages. There was no aspect of secular modern institutions from a postal system to a modern army to education which was in the hands of the clerics.”   Pahlavi’s father, the shah, brought in an era of industrialization and economic improvement alongside greater freedom for women, he said. “This is where the Gen Z of Iran is,” he said. “Regardless of whether I play a direct role or not, Iranians are coming out of the tunnel.”  Conversely, many Iranians still associate his father’s regime with out-of-touch elites and the notorious Savak secret police, whose brutality helped fuel the 1979 revolution. NOT SO FAST  Nobody can be sure what happens next in Iran. It may still come down to Trump and perhaps Israel.  Anti-regime demonstrations fill the streets of more than 100 towns and cities across the country of 90 million people. | Neil Hall/EPA Plenty of experts don’t believe the regime is finished, though it is clearly weakened. Even if the protests do result in change, many say it seems more likely that the regime will use a mixture of fear tactics and adaptation to protect itself rather than collapse or be toppled completely.  While reports suggest young people have led the protests and appear to have grown in confidence, recent days have seen a more ferocious regime response, with accounts of hospitals being overwhelmed with shooting victims. The demonstrations could still be snuffed out by a regime with a capacity for violence.  The Iranian opposition remains hugely fragmented, with many leading activists in prison. The substantial diaspora has struggled to find a unity of voice, though Pahlavi tried last year to bring more people on board with his own movement.  Sanam Vakil, an Iran specialist at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Iran should do better than reviving a “failed” monarchy. She added she was unsure how wide Pahlavi’s support really was inside the country. Independent, reliable polling is hard to find and memories of the darker side of the shah’s era run deep. But the exiled prince’s advantage now may be that there is no better option to oversee the collapse of the clerics and map out what comes next. “Pahlavi has name recognition and there is no other clear individual to turn to,” Vakil said. “People are willing to listen to his comments calling on them to go out in the streets.”

The first American pope is on a collision course with U.S. President Donald Trump. The latest fault line between the Vatican and the White House emerged on Sunday. Shortly after Trump suggested his administration could “run” Venezuela, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV appeared at the Angelus window overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver an address calling for the safeguarding of the “country’s sovereignty.” For MAGA-aligned conservatives, this is now part of an unwelcome pattern. While Leo is less combative in tone toward Trump than his predecessor Francis, his priorities are rekindling familiar battles in the culture war with the U.S. administration on topics such as immigration and deportations, LGBTQ+ rights and climate change. As the leader of a global community of 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo has a rare position of influence to challenge Trump’s policies, and the U.S. president has to tread with uncustomary caution in confronting him. Trump traditionally relishes blasting his critics with invective but has been unusually restrained in response to Leo’s criticism, in part because he counts a large number of Catholics among his core electorate. “[Leo] is not looking for a fight like Francis, who sometimes enjoyed a fight,” said Chris White, author of “Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.” “But while different in style, he is clearly a continuation of Francis in substance. Initially there was a wait-and-see approach, but for many MAGA Catholics, Leo challenges core beliefs.” In recent months, migration has become the main combat zone between the liberal pope and U.S. conservatives. Leo called on his senior clergy to speak out on the need to protect vulnerable migrants, and U.S. bishops denounced the “dehumanizing rhetoric and violence” leveled at people targeted by Trump’s deportation policies. Leo later went public with an appeal that migrants in the U.S. be treated “humanely” and “with dignity.” Leo’s support emboldened Florida bishops to call for a Christmas reprieve from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. “Don’t be the Grinch that stole Christmas,” said Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami. As if evidence were needed of America’s polarization on this topic, however, the Department of Homeland Security described their arrests as a “Christmas gift to Americans.” Leo also conspicuously removed Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Trump’s preferred candidate for pope and a favorite on the conservative Fox News channel, from a key post as archbishop of New York, replacing him with a bishop known for pro-migrant views. This cuts to the heart of the moral dilemma for a divided U.S. Catholic community. For Trump, Catholics are hardly a sideshow as they constitute 22 percent of his electorate, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. While the pope appeals to liberal causes, however, many MAGA Catholics take a far stricter line on topics such as migration, sexuality and climate change. To his critics from the conservative Catholic MAGA camp, such as Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, the pope is anathema. U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV appeared at the Angelus window overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver an address calling for the safeguarding of Venezuela’s “sovereignty.” | Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Last year the pope blessed a chunk of ice from Greenland and criticized political leaders who ignore climate change. He said supporters of the death penalty could not credibly claim to be pro-life, and argued that Christians and Muslims could be friends. He has also signaled a more tolerant posture toward LGBTQ+ Catholics, permitting an LGBTQ+ pilgrimage to St Peter’s Basilica. Small wonder, then, that Trump confidante and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer branded Leo the “woke Marxist pope.” Trump-aligned Catholic conservatives have denounced him as “secularist,” “globalist” and even “apostate.” Far-right pundit Jack Posobiec has called him “anti-Trump.” “Some popes are a blessing. Some popes are a penance,” Posobiec wrote on X. PONTIFF FROM CHICAGO There were early hopes that Leo might build bridges with U.S. hardliners. He’s an American, after all: He wears an Apple watch and follows baseball, and American Catholics can hardly dismiss him as as foreign. The Argentine Francis, by contrast, was often portrayed by critics as anti-American and shaped by the politics of poorer nations. Leo can’t be waved away so easily. Early in his papacy, Leo also showed signs he was keen to steady the church after years of internal conflict, and threw some bones to conservatives such as allowing a Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and wearing more ornate papal vestments. But the traditionalists were not reassured. Benjamin Harnwell, the Vatican correspondent for the MAGA-aligned War Room podcast, said conservatives were immediately skeptical of Leo. “From day one, we have been telling our base to be wary: Do not be deceived,” he said. Leo, Harnwell added, is “fully signed up to Francis’ agenda … but [is] more strategic and intelligent.” After the conclave that appointed Leo, former Trump strategist Bannon told POLITICO that Leo’s election was “the worst choice for MAGA Catholics” and “an anti-Trump vote by the globalists of the Curia.” Trump had a long-running feud with Francis, who condemned the U.S. president’s border wall and criticized his migration policies. Francis appeared to enjoy that sparring, but Leo is a very different character. More retiring by nature, he shies away from confrontation. But his resolve in defending what he sees as non-negotiable moral principles, particularly the protection of the weak, is increasingly colliding with the core assumptions of Trumpism. Trump loomed large during the conclave, with an AI-generated video depicting himself as pope. The gesture was seen by some Vatican insiders as a “mafia-style” warning to elect someone who would not criticize him, Vatican-watcher Elisabetta Piqué wrote in a new book “The Election of Pope Leo XIV: The Last Surprise of Pope Francis.” NOT PERSONAL Leo was not chosen expressly as an anti-Trump figure, according to a Vatican official. Rather, his nationality was likely seen by some cardinals as “reassuring,” suggesting he would be accountable and transparent in governance and finances. But while Leo does not seem to be actively seeking a confrontation with Trump, the world views of the two men seem incompatible. “He will avoid personalizing,” said the same Vatican official. “He will state church teaching, not in reaction to Trump, but as things he would say anyway.” Despite the attacks on Leo from his allies, Trump himself has also appeared wary of a direct showdown. When asked about the pope in a POLITICO interview, Trump was more keen to discuss meeting the pontiff’s brother in Florida, whom he described as “serious MAGA.” When pressed on whether he would meet the pope himself, he finally replied: “Sure, I will. Why not?” The potential for conflict will come into sharper focus as Leo hosts a summit called an extraordinary consistory this week, the first of its kind since 2014, which is expected to provide a blueprint for the future direction of the church. His first publication on social issues, such as inequality and migration, is also expected in the next few months. “He will use [the summit] to talk about what he sees as the future,” said a diplomat posted to the Vatican. “It will give his collaborators a sense of where he is going. He could use it as a sounding board, or ask them to suggest solutions.” It’s safe to assume Leo won’t be unveiling a MAGA-aligned agenda. The ultimate balance of power may also favor the pope. Trump must contend with elections and political clocks; Leo, elected for life, does not. At 70, and as a tennis player in good health, Leo appears positioned to shape Catholic politics well after Trump’s moment has passed. “He is not in a hurry,” the Vatican official said. “Time is on his side.”

Well, it’s (almost) over.  2025 was a monster year of news for Europe, but a couple stories in particular shook the continent — and piqued our readers’ interest. The first was a new and hostile U.S. administration, led by Donald Trump, which dramatically upended the transatlantic relationship (and saw him named POLITICO’s most influential person in Europe).  And the second was the war in Ukraine, which dragged into its fourth, bloody year and — together with Trump’s return to the White House — forced Europe’s leaders to make hard choices about the EU’s security, agency and destiny.   The collision of the two, a paradigm-shattering American president, and the grim reality on Ukraine’s battlefield dominated the year’s news. And POLITICO was there for every consequential speech, summit, and Oval Office spat.  Without further ado, here are our 20 most-read stories of 2025.   20. Europe thinks the unthinkable: Retaliating against Russia As the Kremlin launched a wave of hybrid attacks against EU member countries, from menacing fighter jet incursions to mysterious drone sightings, POLITICO asked: What would it take for Europe to finally hit back? Read the story 19. North Korean troops are far from ‘cannon fodder,’ Ukrainian soldiers say Pyongyang’s entry into the war in Ukraine on the Kremlin side was one of the more surprising stories of 2024. As the fighting continued this year, North Korean infantry proved to be highly skilled combatants, not just expendable pawns, according to Kyiv. Read the story 18. Canada’s conservative leader Pierre Poilievre loses his own seat in election collapse Canada’s election in the spring saw the landslide victory of now-Prime Minister Mark Carney and the spectacular fall of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who was unable to hang onto his own seat. Read the story 17. Trump demands $500B in rare earths from Ukraine for continued support The transactional American president turned his sights on Ukraine’s rare earths, the critical elements and minerals vital to manufacturing modern technologies, asking Kyiv to cough up its natural resources in return for Washington’s help fending off Russia’s invasion … Read the story 16. Ukraine balks at signing Trump deal to hand over its mineral wealth … But that didn’t fly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who refused to sign an agreement drafted by Washington to hand over half of his country’s rare earth minerals to American companies. Read the story 15. ‘Free world needs a new leader’: Europe defends Zelenskyy after Trump attack Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s acrimonious Oval Office showdown with Zelenskyy horrified European leaders and saw the EU stand up to Washington in a major turning point for transatlantic relations. Read story Vice President JD Vance joins as U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office at the White House on August 18, 2025. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images 14. Trump blaming Ukraine for Putin’s war leaves Europe reeling The American leader’s insistence that Ukraine was responsible for its own invasion and parroting of Kremlin talking points didn’t exactly sit well with European governments, with one spokesperson calling his remarks “often incomprehensible.” Read the story 13. Russia to Trump: Back off Ukraine’s rare earths Trump’s efforts to ink an economic deal with Ukraine rang alarm bells in Moscow and triggered a response from the Kremlin’s chief spokesperson. Read the story 12. EU offers Trump removal of all industrial tariffs Trump’s punishing tariffs roiled the global economy, and in a bid to nab itself a better deal, the EU offered to scrap its tariffs on industrial products such as cars and chemicals if Washington did the same. Read the story 11. Macron calls emergency European summit on Trump, Polish minister says French President Emmanuel Macron, who did not exactly have the best year, led the European charge to respond to Trump’s disruption with a crisis meeting in Paris. Read the story 10. Huge blackouts cripple power supply in Spain and Portugal A massive outage in Spain and Portugal brought both countries to a standstill, affecting everything from public transport and traffic lights to hospitals and nuclear power plants. Read the story 9. Trump and Putin stun Europe with peace plan for Ukraine Just weeks after taking office, Trump confirmed Europeans’ worst fears when he called Russian President Vladimir Putin — who had previously been in the diplomatic freezer — and sought to broker an end to the war in Ukraine with the Kremlin, sidelining Kyiv and Brussels. Read the story 8. JD Vance attacks Europe over migration, free speech In a stunning tirade that set the tone for the Trump administration’s scathing stance on Europe this year, the American vice president ripped into the EU over everything from freedom of speech to migration policy. Read the story 7. JD Vance sparks British fury as he mocks Ukraine peacekeeping plan As the coalition of the willing took shape, with EU member countries and the U.K. devising a plan to potentially put boots on the ground in Ukraine, Vance poured scorn on the idea — and triggered backlash from London. Read the story 6. EU offers its own ‘win-win’ minerals deal to Ukraine Just as Trump was close to inking an economic deal with Ukraine to dig up Kyiv’s much-coveted natural resources, the EU swooped in with a rival proposition. Read the story 5. EU slams the door on US in colossal defense plan 2025 saw the EU race to arm itself with an ambitious €800 billion defense spending scheme— but Washington, which partly triggered Europe’s scramble to stand on its own two feet by denigrating Europe and cutting off aid to Ukraine, was shut out of the plan. Read the story 4. Top Trump allies hold secret talks with Zelenskyy’s Ukrainian opponents Weeks after Trump’s angry spray at Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, the U.S. president’s allies held secret discussions with some of the Ukrainian leader’s top domestic opponents. Read the story 3. ‘Parkinson’s is a man-made disease’ One of the most sobering stories of 2025 was the explosion in cases of Parkinson’s disease, which have more than doubled globally over the past 20 years and are expected to do so again in the next 20. A neurologist who leads a globally recognized clinic and research team told POLITICO the reason could be our exposure to chemicals. Read the story Photo-illustration by Laura Scott for POLITICO 2. EU to Trump on tariffs: Go ahead, make our day. As Trump prepared to unleash devastating tariffs on Europe, the EU locked and loaded its so-called “trade bazooka,” in a standoff that put Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry to shame. Read the story 1. Pope Francis, sensing he is close to death, moves to protect his legacy In the end, it was political machinations in the Vatican, not the U.S. or Ukraine, which most fascinated POLITICO’s readers. Facing the prospect of his death (which, when it happened in April following a stroke, triggered an outpouring of global grief), Pope Francis took steps to cement his reformist agenda and ensure his successor would follow in his footsteps. Read the story

ROME — Christmas is becoming a new front line in Europe’s culture wars. Far-right parties are claiming the festive season as their own, recasting Christmas as a marker of Christian civilization that is under threat and positioning themselves as its last line of defense against a supposedly hostile, secular left. The trope echoes a familiar refrain across the Atlantic that was first propagated by Fox News, where hosts have inveighed against a purported “War on Christmas” for years. U.S. President Donald Trump claims to have “brought back” the phrase “Merry Christmas” in the United States, framing it as defiance against political correctness. Now, European far-right parties more usually focused on immigration or law-and-order concerns have adopted similar language, recasting Christmas as the latest battleground in a broader struggle over culture. In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has made the defense of Christmas traditions central to her political identity. She has repeatedly framed the holiday as part of the nation’s endangered heritage, railing against what she calls “ideological” attempts to dilute it. “How can my culture offend you?” Meloni has asked in the past, defending nativity scenes in public spaces. She has argued that children should learn the values of the Nativity — rather than just associating Christmas with food and presents — and rejected the idea that long-standing traditions should be altered. This year, Meloni said she was abstaining from alcohol until Christmas, portraying herself as a practitioner of spirituality and tradition.   France’s National Rally and Spain’s Vox have similarly opposed secularist or “woke” efforts to replace religious imagery with neutral seasonal language, and advocated for nativity scenes in town halls. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has warned that Christmas markets are losing their “German character,” amplifying disinformation about Muslim traditions edging out Christian ones. CHRISTMAS SPECTACLE But Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy, has turned the message into spectacle. Each December it hosts a Christmas-themed political festival — complete with Santa, ice-skating, and a towering Christmas tree lit in the colors of the Italian tricolor. Once held quietly in late summer, the event, named Atreyu — after a character in the fantasy film The NeverEnding Story — has since moved to the prestigious Castel Sant’Angelo, drawing families, tourists and the politically curious. Brothers of Italy said on their Whatsapp Channel that the festival had been “a success without precedent. Record numbers, real participation and a community that grows from year to year, demonstrating how it has become strong, like Italy.” Daniel, a 26-year-old tourist from Mallorca, who declined to give his last name because he did not want to be associated with a far right political event, said he and a friend wandered in after spotting the lights and music. “Then we realized it was about politics,” he said, laughing. CULTURAL CHRISTIANITY For party figures, the symbolism is explicit. “For us, traditions represent our roots, who we are, who we have been, and the history that made us what we are today,” said Marta Schifone, a Brothers of Italy MP. “Those roots must be celebrated and absolutely defended.” That message resonates with younger supporters too. Alessandro Meriggi, a student and leader in Azione Universitaria, the party’s youth wing, said Italy is founded on specific values that newcomers should respect. “In a country like Italy, you can’t ask schools to remove the crucifix,” he said. “It represents our values.” Religion, however, often feels almost beside the point. Many of the politicians leading these campaigns are not especially devout, and only a minority of their voters are practicing Christians. What matters is Christianity as culture, a civilizational shorthand that draws a boundary between “us” and “them.” U.S. President Donald Trump claims to have “brought back” the phrase “Merry Christmas” in the United States. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images “In the 1980s and 1990s, the radical right largely kept its distance from the church,” said Daniele Albertazzi, a professor at the University of Surrey who researches populism. “That changed between 2010–15, following Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe, which were framed as a clash of civilizations. Christianity became a cultural marker, a way to portray themselves as defenders of traditional family, tradition and identity.” Hosting a Christmas festival is a “very intelligent” move by Meloni’s party, he said. “They have tried to reverse the stigma of their past [on the far right] by becoming a broad-church modern conservative party, and this is part of the repackaging.” That strategy benefits from the left’s discomfort with religion in public life. Progressive parties and institutions, including the EU, have tried to emphasize inclusivity by using neutral phrases like “holiday season,” which for the far right amounts to cultural self-loathing. In Italy this year, the League and Brothers of Italy have attacked several schools that removed religious references from Christmas songs. In Genoa, right-wing parties accused the city’s left-wing mayor of delivering a “slap in the face to tradition” after she chose not to display a nativity scene in her offices. “We’re not embarrassed to say ‘Merry Christmas,’” said Lucio Malan, a Brothers of Italy senator, at Meloni’s festival. “I have always promoted religious freedom and know not everyone is Christian. But Christmas is the holiday people care about most. Let’s not forget its origins.” The irony, critics note, is that many Christmas traditions are relatively modern, shaped as much by commerce as by religion. Yet Christmas remains politically potent precisely because it is emotive, tied to family rituals, childhood memories and local identity. For Meloni’s government, taking ownership of Christmas fits a broader project to reclaim control over cultural institutions from public broadcasting to museums and opera, after what it sees as decades of left-wing dominance. The narrative of the far right as the defenders of Christmas presents a challenge for mainstream parties who have struggled to find a compelling counter-argument to convincingly defend secularism. And nowhere is that clearer than at the Brothers of Italy’s Christmas festival itself. As dusk falls over Castel Sant’Angelo, families skate to a soundtrack of Christmas pop, children pose for photos with Santa, and tourists wander in, drawn by lights and music rather than ideology. Politics is present, but softened, wrapped in nostalgia, tradition and seasonal cheer.